On 18th October 2023 Charlie visited the respiratory clinic at Peterborough Hospital after approximately 4 months of not quite feeling himself; a lingering cough, a tight chest, sore ribs. There, we expected to hear the words "long Covid", perhaps a case of pneumonia, but instead Charlie was blindsided with an earth-shattering diagnosis of Stage 4 Lung Cancer. As many of you know Charlie has always been a huge fitness fanatic, a fantastic runner and a non-smoker, so it seemed unfathomable that this was a reality.

With the help of the amazing Professor Popat at The Royal Marsden, we were able to identify that Charlie has an extremely rare form of non-small cell lung cancer, with a gene mutation named ALK positive. There is currently no cure for this type of cancer and at Stage 4, the median life expectancy is under 7 years. At 39 and with a young family, this was simply agony to hear.

Fortunately over the course of the past decade, medication has been approved that aims to shrink the cancer and keep it at bay. In November Charlie started one such pill named Alectinib. Charlie takes 8 of these miracle pills each day and so far, thankfully, they are effective in acting as a signal blocker to the cancer in his body and he is currently responding very well to the treatment. We hope this will be the case for many months and years to come, but sadly after Alectinib loses it's efficacy there is only one other pill currently approved for use that could potentially keep Charlie's cancer under control.

The positive news is that lung cancer research is making huge advances. Research is already underway to find the drugs that Charlie will inevitably need in order to extend his life. Trials are happening right now, that we hope with everything we have, will help Charlie when the time comes.

Through this page, every penny raised will go directly in to Professor Popat’s fund for Lung Cancer Research at The Royal Marsden. Over the last decade they have made huge advances and we are in desperate, desperate need of your help to support their ongoing work, to find ways of extending and improving Charlie's life expectancy and to hopefully, one day, helping find a cure.

Thank you so, so much from Charlie, Charlotte and Poppy P x